An expert on North Korea says that a “global catastrophe” is now looming following a powerful missile launch by the rogue regime on Wednesday.

Blaine Harden has spent decades reporting on North Korea, and he said doing so has been unlike any other assignment.

According to ABC News, Harden has not only visited and reported on North Korea’s totalitarian state, he has written three books focused exclusively on nonfiction narratives uncovered through his years of work and research there.

His latest book, King of Spies, lays out the largely unknown story of Donald Nichols, an unlikely yet effective American spymaster.

“North Korea is, you know, the longest-lasting totalitarian state in the history of the planet. Seventy years almost.

For Harden, examining the barbarism and trauma of the Korean War in which Nichols played such a crucial role held important lessons about the history of U.S.-North Korean relations, particularly after the U.S. began its brutal bombing campaign. -ABC News

“They destroyed virtually every city, every town in North Korea. General Curtis LeMay who was head of the Strategic Air Command at the time estimated that the Americans killed 20 percent of the civilians in North Korea,” Harden said. “So that bombing was a fact. It’s a historical experience that the grandparents of the current people of North Korea all experienced.”

Harden says that the Kim family has used that loss of life as leverage in an effective propaganda message against the United States.

And now Harden is nervous about the possibility of yet another war.

“I’m more concerned than I was before. But then you know, it’s the Kim family that’s pushing the nukes and the long-range missiles. That’s not the fault of Donald Trump,” Harden added. “They are setting up what could be, you know, a global catastrophe.”

Harden says that although Kim Jong-Un is unstable and incredibly unpredictable, he’s been consistent over the years. “They are really consistent, and their track record is they’re getting better at what they do,” said Harden. “The threats, the bloodcurdling rhetoric that you could hear from North Korea, it hasn’t really changed for decades. What’s new and what is confusing to the North Koreans is they’re starting to hear echoes –- reverse echoes — of that rhetoric from America’s president.”

All of that rhetoric though may lead to a third world war and subsequent global catastrophe.